A woman wearing a mask protests Wednesday in Stockholm, Sweden, over Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons against his own people. / Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images

Written by

the Detroit Free Press Editorial Board

President Barack Obama seems increasingly likely to order missile strikes to punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons against his own people. The question is whether the U.S. can do so without escalating the Syrian civil war, further endangering the very civilians that Obama and other western leaders want to protect.

Nations horrified at the injuries sustained by combatants and civilians exposed to mustard gas during World War I banned the first-use of chemical and biological weapons in the Geneva Protocol of 1925, and in the 88 years since, the deployment of such weapons has been documented in only a handful of instances.

But someone used such a weapon last week in an attack on the Sunni-majority suburbs of Syria’s capital city, killing hundreds of civilians and injuring thousands more. Eyewitnesses likened the attack’s aftermath to a scene from a horror movie, with cars bearing the corpses of entire families arriving one after the other at hospitals overwhelmed by dying and sickened Sunnis.

The persuasive, if not quite conclusive, evidence is that the someone responsible for this atrocity is Assad, whose regime has been under siege by a diverse coalition of rebel groups for more than two years. This week, citing what it and other Western governments described as irrefutable proof of Assad’s culpability, the White House said it is actively weighing military options to “deter and degrade” the Syrian government’s ability to deploy chemical weapons. Some have urged the White House to go further, perhaps by intervening to tip Syria’s 2-year-old civil war in the rebels’ favor.

No one who has seen photos and video images of the attack on suburban Damascus can fail to share President Barack Obama’s horror at the spectacle of women convulsing and children foaming at the mouth. And even by the higher standard of proof that has prevailed since his predecessor cried wolf over Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the circumstantial evidence of Assad’s complicity seems overwhelming.

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But it is far from certain that any of the limited military actions that the president is contemplating will dissuade a desperate and calculating dictator from doing whatever it takes to ensure his regime’s survival. And even missile strikes designed to minimize civilian casualties may lead to intensified fighting on both sides, augmenting the civilian deaths and injuries that humanitarians seek to avenge.

Obama’s critics fault the president for muddling the United States’ objectives in Syria, complaining that his avowed disinterest in any military intervention designed to oust Assad is at odds with previous statements expressing a preference for a negotiated regime change. But the problem is not that the White House has failed to articulate its druthers clearly; it simply recognizes that Americans have no appetite for the more-muscular military commitment that would be required to give the rebels a decisive negotiating advantage.

The pressure to take some kind of military action, even if it is largely symbolic; has been intensified by Obama’s warning that use of chemical weapons in Syria was a “red line” whose breach would trigger serious consequences. Even those who doubt the usefulness of a limited missile strike now worry that Obama’s failure to order one will weaken U.S. credibility at a time when the White House needs countries like Iran and North Korea to know that it means business.

But Obama shouldn’t order a missile strike that is likely to prove ineffectual, or even counterproductive, simply because it’s the most that Congress or the American public will bear. It would be better to direct significant resources to providing a safe haven for civilians caught in the cross fire than to authorize half-hearted military measures that have no enduring impact on Assad’s calculations. Such an ineffectual symbolic response would only highlight the limits of America’s influence in Syria, no matter how effectively it satisfies the immediate pressure to do something.

Responding swiftly to Assad’s provocation is not as important as rallying the support of humanitarians around the world for punitive action. It’s unrealistic to expect the formal permission of the United Nations, in whose Security Council, Assad’s Russian champions would almost certainly veto any resolution authorizing military intervention in the Syrian conflict. But waiting for UN inspectors to conclude their ongoing investigation of the chemical weapons attack seems prudent, if only to satisfy skeptical western allies.

In summary, the White House should take as much time as it needs to fine-tune a response that can reasonably be expected to achieve its stated objectives: reducing the likelihood of further chemical attacks and shielding Syrian civilians from an indiscriminate escalation of violence.

Anything less thoughtful is unworthy of the world’s greatest democracy, and too dangerous to indulge in today’s volatile Middle East.